


Fairytales

by sulli



Category: Little Mix (Band), One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/F, F/M, cisgirl!niall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:43:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1197114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sulli/pseuds/sulli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jade Thirlwall new and has a crush on Perrie Edwards. It's not big deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fairytales

Perrie doesn't believe in fairytales, happy endings, or happily ever afters. She doesn't do relationships and if you were to ask anyone to name one thing they know about Perrie Edwards, it's that she's Class A Weirdo. She's also captain of her cheerleading team, and that's usually the second thing people will mention upon being asked about Perrie Edwards.

 

The thing about Perrie is she's never been told not to do something. She's never believed in not doing something, even if it may not be socially acceptable to do so. As a result, she's often the one in the corner imitating baby noises or goats or whatever she fancies at that particular time. Sometimes, when the teacher calls on her to answer a question, she speaks in an accent no one can really place and makes weird Popeye faces while Niall cackles in the corner as if she's done the funniest thing she's ever seen.

 

To be fair, that's generally his reaction to most things, especially, pretty much _most definitely_ if you are Louis Tomlinson.

 

As the stereotype dictates, one would expect Perrie Edwards to be snooty, mean, and an all around Insufferable Bitch. The truth of the matter is, Perrie Edwards has a growing collection of cat plushies. She’s got three dogs named Princess, Pie, and Porcupine. She drives her mum's old minivan to school and reminds everyone to put on a seatbelt before she’s even starts the car.

 

Perrie Edwards walks around the school smelling like grapes on Monday, lemons on Wednesday and Vanilla every other day.

 

If you were to ask anyone what they thought of Perrie Edwards they'd say she's weird but "in a nice way, you know?"

 

For all of Perrie's weird and slightly endearing qualities, she's not good in school and spends most of her time yelling loudly across the room to Zayn Malik in an attempt to make him blush. It works roughly eight out of ten times. Zayn Malik would rather die than admit this.

 

She spends her breaks talking loudly to Niall Horan in exaggerated accents while Jesy chimes in every once in a while with her crowd-pleasing American accent. Perrie’s group consists of Jesy Nelson, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson. On a good day, Zayn Malik can be tricked into spending the afternoon with them but only when under the guise of watching superhero flicks.  

 

Zayn Malik is probably the hottest dork Perrie Edwards has ever seen and tells him as much as loud as possible, as often as possible.

 

This was True for all three years Perrie Edwards took Biology. Until January 15th, three days after she'd drunkenly made out with Zayn on his birthday. Neither remember much. There was probably a lot of spit and awkward boners. Neither will talk about it the next day or ever again

 

January 15th started out normal enough. Breakfast was spent skipping first period with Jesy and English class was spent sleeping off breakfast. Third period Math class was when everything changed and that change came in the form of a birdlike girl with big hair, big glasses, and big eyes.

 

Perrie Edwards didn't know it yet, but Jade Thirlwall would very soon be replacing Zayn Malik as the hottest dork Perrie Edwards has ever seen. Jade Thirlwall would also replace Zayn at #1 on her list of People To Make Out With At Parties.

 

Jade Thirlwall was small and had a quiet voice and no one heard her introduction that was directed towards the floor rather than to her audience of inattentive high school students.

 

She sat three rows down from Perrie Edwards but that didn't stop Perrie from casually dropping her pencil three times within the hour just to glance back at Jade who was seen at all times to be furiously writing down everything the teacher wrote on the board. As if that stuff mattered.

 

As the professor begin talking about something she Did Not Care About, Perrie turns towards Jesy who sat on her left, and whispers, "we need to have an emergency meeting. Text Louis. Right this instant."

 

Because whispering isn’t on Perrie’s list of Things She Can Do, it comes out louder than intended.

 

Jesy does as she was told because she sometimes likes to listen when others (Perrie) talk to her.  

 

The trio consisting of Louis, Jesy, and Perrie proceed to skip the rest of the day and spend it at Louis' house where there was less chance of being caught by an errant sibling or parent.

 

"Does anyone know anything about Jade Thirlwall?" Perrie asks with as much seriousness as someone asking about how even their eyeliner is. For Perrie Edwards, that is a serious question that deserves a serious answer.

 

Naturally, Louis nor Jesy know who this is. This exasperats Perrie greatly as _who else_ would Jade Thirlwall be other than the incredibly pretty new girl.

 

"Ahh, she's the one with the big hair, right?" This would be something Jesy noticed as her hair was just as big as Jade's, if not bigger on days where she decided to skip first period to focus on gaining as much volume as possible.

 

"Exactly!" Perrie stands up from the couch she had been sitting on to pace in front of the other two who had occupied either side of her before she'd gotten up, "I need to find out _everything_ about her. Favourite colour, animal, food, you name it, I need to know it."

 

Louis was confused about why any of this should matter and said as much to Perrie who seemed to take that as if he'd personally insulted her.

 

"I _need_ to know this, Louis, because Jade Thirlwall is magnificent and if I want to befriend her, date her, then marry her, I need to at _least_ know her likes and dislikes."

 

"You've not even met her, don't you think you might be going an eensy bit overboard?" Jesy asks as if that was a question even worth asking. Perrie didn't consider it as such, so she ignors it to continue pacing the floor.

 

"I bet Niall knows something. Or else she knows someone who knows someone who knows something," Perrie knew this because Niall was probably the most well-connected person at their school of over 1000 students. Perrie figures she knows the names of at least 80% of them. Maybe that’s being generous.

 

"Oh you know what, Niall would know something. That girl," as Louis says this, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and was presumably texting Niall, demanding to know everything she knew about Jade Thirlwall. This is what Perrie assumes, anyway.

 

"Good. You text Niall, and I'll go see if I can find her on Facebook."

 

 

* * *

 

 

As it turns out, Niall does know Jade Thirlwall. She knows Jade’s 18 and that she's just moved here from someplace elsewhere (Perrie doesn't remember where exactly, thinks it's probably not relevant enough to remember) and, according to Niall, has a cute smile.

 

This is all Perrie needs to know 100% that Jade Thirlwall was Worth It. Worth what, Perrie wasn't sure yet. Maybe she was worth the moon or maybe she was worth a date to the expensive milkshake place. Both are of equal value.

 

Perrie's never had a problem with approaching people before, but she's having troubles now. Every time she gets within speaking distance, suddenly she loses her nerve and continues walking by as if she hadn't planned on talking, noticing, or acknowledging Jade’s existence.

 

This is strange for Perrie because she's never been shy a day in her life. If she can shout sexual innuendos in front of the principal to Zayn then she can say hi to new girl Jade Thirlwall.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jade Thirlwall knows exactly two things about Perrie Edwards: she's weird and she's pretty. Granted, one doesn't _know_ the physical attractiveness of someone as it's a pretty objective thing, but Jade Thirlwall doesn't know a lot about Perrie Edwards.

 

She'd like to know more.

 

Perrie Edwards has lovely eyes, and fluffy hair and pretty thighs and a huge smile that makes Jade's heart do funny things and makes her feel pleasant all over. Perrie is like the sun and everything seems to revolve around her.

 

Jade's seen her in gym class, wearing short shorts with a knot in her tshirt. Her stomach looks soft and Jade wants to touch the smoothness of her thighs to see if they're as warm as she thinks they'd be.

 

Jade can never tell anyone this.

 

She's around 90% sure Perrie is dating Zayn Malik, who, Jade can objectively say is one of the most beautiful human beings ever, and if she weren't so busy being extremely jealous, she'd think about how physically gifted their children would be.

 

Jade knows that if she wants to graduate at the top of her class, she needs to spend less time thinking about Perrie Edwards and more time studying but three hours into her English homework, the words start blurring together and the only thing on her mind is a blonde girl with blue eyes who likes to do backflips in the air. Maybe. Jade doesn’t actually know what a cheerleader does. She’s seen Bring It On but figures that’s more than what the average high school cheerleader does.

 

Jade has made exactly one friend and she accounts that mostly to the fact that Niall Horan seems to be friends with everyone and their dog, cat, and grandmother. But Niall's nice and she makes Jade laugh and if Perrie's the sun, Niall’s probably a close relative of the sun. She's bright and wherever she goes, she naturally draws all attention to her.

 

Jade thinks Niall and Perrie have a lot in common.

 

Jade knows that Perrie with the nice hair and the voice would never look at Jade because she's quiet and plain and why would anyone look at her when they could instead be focusing all their attention (rightly so) on Zayn Malik, a Living God.

 

Jade contents herself to sneaking glances at Perrie in the hallway when Perrie's yelling something to Jesy Nelson down the hall and when Perrie's popping bubblegum at the beginning of class.

 

 

* * *

 

 

On a Tuesday, three weeks after she'd arrived at the school and effectively blended herself in with the background, her Math teacher assigns a project where they're supposed to get into groups of two and go around measuring things, which seems a bit juvenile to Jade but the more concerning thing on her mind is how she's going to find a partner.

 

She can see everyone around her partnering up and feels the same sick feeling she always gets when she knows no one's going to pick her, like grade eight gym class all over again when no one ever wanted her on their team because of her likelihood of tripping or only managing to score a goal when it's the other team's net.

 

Sometimes Jade feels like she’s the punchline of a really awful joke about a nerdy girl who has no friends, no sports skills, and no social skills.

 

What she's expecting is to be either shoe-horned into an established group or left to do the work by herself. What she's not expecting is Perrie Edwards, _the_ Perrie Edwards, to slip into the unoccupied seat beside her. Jade glances up in surprise as her heart jumps painfully against her chest.

 

"H'llo," Perrie says, casual as anything.

 

Jade's having trouble forming words at the moment, mostly out of supreme shock at being chosen by Perrie but also because she's even prettier this close up. So pretty she shouldn't even be allowed to occupy the same area as Jade.

 

Jade eventually manages an 'um, hi,' after what she hopes wasn't an awkwardly long silence. Perrie's smile widens and she points to the assignment that the teacher had just placed on their desk.

 

With a bright smile, Perrie says, "I'm Perrie. D'you wanna get started on this, then?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jade doesn't talk a lot, as Perrie has come to notice. That's just as well since it seems Perrie can't keep her mouth shut.

 

It'd taken a lot of pep talk from Jesy to work up the encourage to even sit next to Jade, never mind form proper words and create understandable sentences. She could feel her heart pounding as she took in Jade's wide bambi eyes and her tiny mouth as she looked up in surprise.

 

Perrie doesn't know what she's supposed to be doing for this assignment. As soon as the teacher had said they could choose their own groups, her mind immediately went to Jade and how Perrie was going to make sure she and Jade ended up partners.

 

As it turns out, Jesy is as smart as Perrie always knew she was and immediately grabbed Leigh-Anne Pinnock as her partner, effectively leaving Perrie free to swoop in and claim Jade as her own partner.

 

There had been an awkward silence when Perrie sat down, suddenly unsure of herself, suddenly doubting everything from her hair, to her clothes, to her perfume, to her existence.

 

Perrie was proud of the way she'd been able to keep the nervous tremor out of her voice as she introduced herself but wasn't as impressed when she quickly jumped to the assignment which left no room for Jade to introduce herself (not that Perrie needed it). But Jade had replied in a small voice, "ehm, yes. I'm Jade."

 

Perrie refrained from saying 'I know' and they continued on their way measuring their textbooks, binders, erasers, and pens. All the while Perrie was managing to single handedly hold a conversation on her own as Jade silently nodded and smiled at appropriate times.

 

If you were to ask Perrie Edwards what she'd said during those forty-five minutes of work, she'd have told you she had no clue. It seems her mouth likes to go on autopilot while her brain struggles to keep up with whatever nonsense it's spewing.

 

They manage to hand in their worksheet and Perrie's sure she's done well since Jade did most of the work and corrected all of Perrie's mistakes. Perrie knows Jade's smart, had accidentally seen an essay Jade had received, an A+ with a smiley face sticker, mocking Perrie’s C and  'you can do better' note.

 

When they pack up their things, Jade avoids all eye contact and Perrie can't control the swoop of disappointment at spending forty-five minutes with Jade but not getting any closer to her than she'd been before. She considers this a failure and says as much to Jesy and Leigh as they they walk through the halls, "maybe she just doesn't like me?" The "don't be stupid," from Jesy and the encouraging words from Leigh, while expected coming from them were nice but they didn't help ease the hurt in her chest.

 

Perrie did her best to forget the class and attempt to focus all of her energy on practicing for the game next Friday in which their school would go up against another district that has historically always kicked their ass.

 

She mostly succeeds.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jade has a problem and it's that she can't stop staring at Perrie. No matter where she is, it seems like Perrie is _right there_ and who can blame her for sneaking as many glances as possible without being caught? Jade thinks it's perfectly reasonable to appreciate attractiveness, and she's not being too creepy about it, so why should it matter?

 

She'd been staring more often than usual after she'd stumbled upon an interesting bit of information. As it turns out, Zayn Malik actually wasn't dating Perrie. Rumour was he had a small crush on Niall (who still remained her only friend). It was only when she'd heard from Louis Tomlinson that Niall might sort of like Zayn as well that she resolved to ask Niall during last period Biology.

 

Keeping her voice low, she asked, "Is it true that you like Zayn?" And judging by the way her face flamed up, she guessed it to be true. She at first attempts to deny it, but it’s evident that Niall is pretty much shit at lying.

 

"He' just pretty, in'he?" Which was 100% true and Jade says as much. "How'd you find out?"

 

"I actually overhead Louis talking about it," Jade replied which didn't seem to surprise Niall much, judging by her eyeroll.

 

"Course you did. That fucker doesn't know how to keep quiet."

 

Jade doesn’t say much else, isn’t sure what else she’s supposed to say so she leaves it at that.

 

It’s only after school the next day that she sees Niall and Zayn pressed closed together in the library, sharing a laptop and laughing. Niall sees her through the glass window and waves before looking at Zayn, who’s still looking at the laptop screen, and back to Jade wiggling her eyebrows. Jade isn’t sure what she’s trying to say but Jade waves and smiles back.

 

Jade’s mum picks her up after school and they head to the store first because her mum had forgotten to get a couple things the other. It's when they're in the superstore that Jade sees Perrie in the cereal aisle. Because Jade's life is a joke, Perrie naturally sees her as well.

 

"Jade! What are you doing here?"

 

"Here with my mum, needed milk and things..." Perrie's smiling at Jade as if what she had to say was something interesting and not her mother's grocery list.

 

"I needed cereal," Perrie says, pointing to the box of Cheerios in her basket with the hand holding a box of Rice Krispies. "'Cept I can't choose which one I want. Help me, Jade. Choose."

 

Jade can't help the laugh as she points to the Lucky Charms on the shelf.

 

"Very good choice, Jade. I knew I could trust you with an important decision," Perrie says as she puts the other two boxes away and picks up the Lucky Charms. "Wanna come over and have some? Not everyday you get to eat your good choices."

 

Jade would very much like to but instead says, "Oh, no, I couldn't. My mum..."

 

Perrie's already nodding as Jade trails off, "Right, no. Of course. I'll see you at school, okay?"

 

Jade nods but Perrie's back is already to her and Jade has no other choice but to pick up her own box of Lucky Charms and find her mother, likely to be found somewhere in the ice cream section.

 

After that, it’s not so much as Jade ignores Perrie, she just makes a bit of an effort to avoid anywhere Perrie might be. It’s not really “avoiding” Perrie, per se, more like just finding new routes to her classes. If that means she’s a bit late to class, well. So be it.

 

She’s definitely _not_ avoiding Perrie, though.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Perrie is definitely avoiding Jade. She’s not sure why, she’s had more embarrassing encounters before but her desperate need to appear cool, calm, and collected in front of Jade has inhibited most of her abilities to actually be cool, calm, and collected in front of Jade. Which is a problem and apparently funny to everyone else but her.

 

“Not even sure why I told you guys. Not even sure why I’m friends you lot. You all are trash and no longer my friends,” Perrie is quite obviously annoyed with Louis and Jesy who find her predicament funny and are proving completely unhelpful as they laugh at her. They don’t take her seriously, however, because the decibel of her voice tends to go higher the more angry, annoyed, or frustrated she gets which is always perfect fodder for mocking purposes.

 

“Love, you are so gone. Ask her to the game on Friday,” Louis says through a laugh. Perrie can’t help but sigh exasperatedly because if he’d even bothered to listen to her, he’d know that she can’t ask her to the game because of her inability to actually _speak_ to Jade which is obviously problematic on many levels. Obviously.

 

“I can’t, Louis, if you’d listened to me at all, _Louis_ , you’d know this,” Perrie explains very pointedly and what she thinks is a clear manner but Louis just pats her on the head in his very condescending way and smiles.

 

“You poor kitten. It’s hard being Perrie, innit?”

 

Perrie curls up her lip and is so very done with him.

 

The thing about avoiding Jade though is that they’ve got the same class and that just complicates the whole avoiding thing, doesn’t it? She can’t skip another class or she’ll get yelled at (again) and that’s just something she’d really like to avoid, thanks.

 

As it turns out, Perrie shouldn’t have worried so much since it was clear that Jade was also attempting to avoid _her_. “That’s so rude,” she whispers to Jesy in the middle of class.

 

“You were avoiding her, too, Perrie,” Jesy whispers back while also managing to write down everything the teacher saying. An enviable trait, Perrie thinks, wistfully.

 

“That’s not the point!” Perrie says in her most ‘ _duh_ ’ voice.

 

“What is the point then?”

 

“The _point_ is that she shouldn’t be ignoring me on account of the fact that _I_  was ignoring her first.”

 

“That’s an incredibly dumb point as _neither_ of you should be avoiding each other. It wasn’t even that embarrassing and you’re both being very stupid.”

 

Perrie rolls her eyes. She’s so, so, so done with her friends.

 

When Perrie thinks about it, she thinks she could probably rethink her strict no-dating policy. It’s not for anyone that she’d reconsider this, as she’s probably lived by this rule the entire time she’s been in high school. But there’s something about Jade Thirlwall that makes her want to tuck the other girl into bed and make as many hot chocolates as it takes to make Jade fall in love with her.

 

She doesn’t tell this to anyone because she has no friends and everyone sucks.

 

But it’s not an unpleasant thought.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jade can see Perrie and Jesy whispering back and forth three seats ahead of her and notices Perrie looking back at her often. It’s only through her peripherals that she’s able to notice Perrie looking back and it only happens when Perrie thinks Jade can’t see her. She can’t help the warm flush that covers her face and chest. Doesn’t know if it’s out of embarrassment or something else she can’t put her finger on.

 

Thinks it’s probably the latter.

 

There’s nothing she’d like to do more than to just go up to Perrie and kiss her straight on the mouth like any decent person would do. Or at least be able to go up to Perrie and tell her how she feels and, as the saying goes, let the chips fall where they may. Jade thinks it’s only about 76% possible that Perrie feels the same way she does. From what she’s heard around the school Perrie’s only as a straight as a crooked ruler. None of that means she’s attracted to Jade but she’s a big believer in doing something before it’s too late.

 

It’s just. She has a problem with acting on it.

 

She’s sitting in the cafeteria by herself mostly avoiding looking over the side of the room where She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is sitting, when she feels the table lean with the telltale sign of someone occupying the seat beside her.

 

“What’s going on with you’n Perrie, then?” someone asks, casual as anything.

 

Jade jumps, and looks over to the left, startled at not only Niall’s sudden appearance, but also her question. “Uhm?”

 

“Good answer, may need some more details,” Niall says with a gentle grin and a nudge to her shoulder.

 

“I just…” Jade’s not sure what to say. If she should lie, if that’s even possible to someone like Niall who definitely has superhuman powers, or to tell the truth. “I just. I’m. You know. Avoiding her.”

 

“Why? I thought you two would get along nice as friends?”

 

“I mean. Maybe? But. I think, perhaps. Maybe I like her? Like like.”

 

“Like like?” Niall repeats, with a questioning quirk of her eyebrow. “Like like. Like a crush?”

 

“Like,” Jade answers with a definitive nod.

 

“I see. Why’s Perrie avoiding you, then?”

 

“I don’t know? I hadn’t actually noticed she was avoiding me?”

 

Niall nods as if she understands completely, “probably because you’re both avoiding each other. Not a lot of time to notice that the other is doing the same thing as you. Makes sense.”

 

Jade doesn’t say anything because nothing really makes sense to her right now. It’s just that her brain is a bit of a mess and she doesn’t know how to deal with anything at the moment. It feels like she’s completely out of her element. She’s never had to deal with having a crush on someone so completely out of her league.

 

“I think you should do something. Friday night, perhaps. After the game, probably,” Niall says as if Jade hasn’t already thought through a million different scenarios for this already.

 

“How, though? I can’t do it.”

 

“Not with that attitude, you can’t! No, I think you can definitely do it,” Niall is so earnest about it, Jade considers the idea for all of three seconds before immediately deciding she’s crazy.

 

“You’re crazy,” Jade says and begins to pack up her uneaten lunch, not being able to even deal with food with the insane mess of nerves in her stomach.

 

“I’m not. I think you should definitely, definitely, definitely do it. You’ll be surprised, I think.”

 

It’s the way Niall says it. Like she’s leaving absolutely no room for any disagreements. Like she knows 100% that everything will work out nicely. What an asshole.

 

So of course it’s Niall that convinces her in the end. She’s fairly sure Niall could convince someone to jump into a pit of lava if she smiled bright enough. Jade doesn’t tell Niall any of this and instead punches her arm and leaves Niall grinning after her like the absolute idiot she is. Jade hopes someone steals her second pudding cup.  

 

It’s on Friday that Jade decides to grab life by the horns and take what she wants. Or maybe just politely ask. Her mum didn’t raise a rude daughter.

 

See, there’s this game and Perrie will naturally be there as dictated by her role as captain of the cheerleading squad. Jade’s never seen Perrie in her uniform and figures it might be good encouragement for her mission.

 

Her mission being to ask Perrie Edwards on a date because that’s a thing Jade Thirlwall does. Or at least, it’s something she’s willing to start.

 

If it doesn’t work, she’ll drop out of school, get a complete makeover, and change her name. Since she doubts her mum will let her do any of the above, she’ll at the very least start wearing a paper bag over her head to school.

 

It’s not foolproof but she’ll think it through more when-slash-if her plan fails. She’s got this new policy as established three minutes ago to start being as optimistic as possible, another thing Jade Thirlwall has decided to do. So she’s been repeating ‘Perrie will say yes’ in a steady mantra for ten minutes. It doesn’t really do anything to convince her but at least it’s a nice distraction.

 

Up until the time she’s left school until this very moment, Jade has gone through her entire wardrobe three times and everything is either _too ugly, not cute, ugly, oh my god no, so ugly, not cute, very ugly, ugly_ and is sitting on the floor among a pile of clothes thinking _what if I just don’t go, there’s always next game_.

 

But Jade Thirlwall doesn’t give up so she chooses a purple dress and thigh highs, pairs them with Doc Martens and calls it a day.

 

As cool teenagers do, she asks her mum for a ride because she doesn’t want to prolong what she considers the inevitable and if she can get there sooner, that just means less time for giving into her intense desire to run away.

 

Her mum drops her off and it’s busier than what’d she’d been expecting, though, to be fair, she hadn’t been expecting much. Never big on school spirit, she generally hid herself away in the library to study when pep rallies came up and there was never a reason to attend any home games.

 

She finds a seat in the stands and scans the crowd. She recognizes a few kids from her classes but none of them make eye contact and it’s not like she’d know what to do if they did so she doesn’t think too much on it. She tries to spot a more familiar face, one of Perrie’s inner circle friends but sees none of them. Down on the field, she sees a group of cheerleaders in navy blue and yellow uniforms and Jade’s eyes are immediately drawn to the blonde girl with her hair in a ponytail.

 

Just as Jade suspected, Perrie looks stupidly hot in a cheerleading uniform which just seems astronomically unfair since Perrie looks pretty hot almost all the time, as it is.

 

Didn’t think it was even possible to get any hotter, but Jade thinks Perrie could probably do anything.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jade doesn’t know who wins. She’s not even sure which team is which but she cheers when the crowd does even though she’s about 90% sure she’s been cheering for the wrong team some of the time.

 

Mostly she stares at Perrie in her short skirt and the way her thighs look so nice and how her ponytail swishes against the middle of her back whenever she moves.

 

The stands start to slowly empty with people and Jade finds it difficult to move against the crowd of people moving in the opposite direction. When she makes it to the field, her hands are sweaty, alternately being curled tightly in fists and being rubbed together. As luck would have it, Perrie notices her straight away and in typical Perrie Fashion grins as big as possible.

 

“Jade!” Perrie yells as she starts moving towards Jade. Before she even knows what’s happening, Perrie’s got her arms around her in a tight hug that Jade somehow manages to return.

 

“Hey,” Jade says, once they’ve stepped back, “good game?”

 

It comes out more as a question and Perrie laughs, “nah. We lost.”

 

“Ahhh... I wasn’t sure. Which team I was supposed to be cheering for,” Jade says with a giggle. Because she is unable to ever control her movements, she scratches her neck. A nervous tick that she only ever notices once she’s started scratching.

 

“Yeah, totally understand,” Perrie laughs, even though Jade thinks Perrie’s just saying that.

 

“Yeah. Uhm, you know. I was just, uhm, wondering? If you wanted to, only if you wanted to, no obligation, of course. Obviously. But I was just wondering, if you, ah, wanted to. You know. Go out? With me, I mean. Go out. With me. On a date?” Jade’s sure the world is about to swallow her. It sounded more smooth in her head but it comes out like a bumbling and stuttering mess. She’d looked to the right of Perrie’s head the entire time, seeing only the goal post and a bit of blonde hair.

 

“Jaaade! Yes! I’d totally love to, Jade. Yes. Of course!” Jade’s eyes immediately snap to Perrie’s face, who’s as red as what Jade imagines her own face to be. But Perrie’s smiling wide, bigger than Jade’s ever seen her smile before and feels her heart constrict in an entirely pleasant way.

 

“That’s great. Really great. Do you want to? Like now?” It’s only now that Jade realizes she hadn’t thought out what she’d say if Perrie actually said yes and is mostly winging it at this point.

 

“Uhm, that’d be great. Yeah. I should, like, change, probably? It’ll take me like a second. Ten minutes, tops. Come wait for me in the change room?” Perrie doesn’t give Jade much of a chance as she grabs Jade’s hand, intertwining their fingers as she pulls her towards what Jade is going to safely assume is the changing room.

 

As it turns out, there are no stalls and Perrie’s not shy so she strips down to underwear and a bra right next to Jade.

 

Jade does her best not to stare and instead focuses her gaze on the row of lockers in front of her and valiantly does not let her eyes wander. Out of her peripherals she can see movement. Would rather not think about what’s going on right beside her.

 

Perrie takes fifteen minutes to get ready but Jade won’t hold it against her. There’s something very soothing about the way Perrie applies all 1000 of her makeup products.  

 

Jade doesn’t actually know anywhere to eat so Perrie ends up suggesting an ice cream place with semi decent fast food but pretty amazing soft serve ice cream. Jade has no complaints.

 

Perrie has a car that smells like leather. She’s got a backpack and four pillows in the backseat of her car. Jade doesn’t ask about the pillows. The car ride is quiet but it doesn’t feel awkward, which seems surprising to Jade since she’d never known silence to be anything other than Extremely Awkward. Perrie’s got the radio on, and Let Her Go plays twice before they make it to the ice cream place.

 

It’s brightly lit inside and quiet. The soft hum of the machines and the sound of the deepfryer timer going off being the only noise.

 

After ordering, they sit by a large window separated by a wall from the cash register and the curious eyes of the workers. Perrie buys their food.

 

It’s silent for a bit. They’ve mostly been making eye contact over milkshakes and occasionally their hands will meet in the middle over the shared container of large french fries.

 

Jade’s got a bit of chocolate ice cream on her lips when she leans over to kiss Perrie. She can taste the strawberry on Perrie’s lips and that too creates a pleasant feeling in her. She feels Perrie smile against her lips and when Jade pulls back, Perrie follows her. With a hand on her chin, they meet back in the middle again.

 

Four kisses later, they sit back down.

 

“S’good,” Perrie says.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Tonight. It was good,” Perrie puts her hand on the table and Jade intertwins their fingers. Perrie grips her fingers tighter and takes a sip from her milkshake. Swallows and leans toward Jade to kiss her again. Pulls back and says, “once you start, ‘s hard to stop, innit?”

 

“What’s that?” Jade asks for the second time, but leans over to kiss Perrie before she can answer.

 

She knows the answer, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> semi edited and actually completed despite being started a week ago. whooo am i??
> 
> the soundtrack while writing this was nina nesbitt's newest album, you me at six's newest album and a lil bit of passenger's newest album. completely inspired by [this](http://ymirkrista.tumblr.com/post/76171420959/im-sick-of-all-this-popular-jock-has-crush-on) though i didn't completely stick to it.


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